Articles by Michael Fitzgerald

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

We’re continuing my current rebooking arc this week, as we go from Survivor Series 2015 all the way up to WrestleMania XXXII.

Last week we booked Royal Rumble 2016, and I’ll post the results after the break line for those who would like to be easily caught up to where we are in this six part arc. You can also read the full article in my archives should you wish to.

We left the Royal Rumble show with Dean Ambrose picking up the win in the Rumble match itself to earn a place in the Main Event of WrestleMania XXXII. Roman Reigns successfully defended his WWE Title on the show as well, but he ended up in a post-match face-off with The Undertaker, leading to the inevitable match between them being booked.

Charlotte Flair is still the WWE Women’s Champion, but she is getting increasingly more paranoid and desperate to hang onto it, as is Kevin Owens with his Intercontinental Title. I’m going to finally do something with Alberto Del Rio and the United States Title on this show as well, as I’ve been neglecting it since I began the arc and he’s yet to defend it on pay per view since I took over.

You can view the real card for the event by clicking below;

https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=137910&page=2

Happy Stinky Saturday Everyone!

I’ve never actually seen Battleground 2017 but it’s one of the lowest rated WWE shows ever on CageMatch.net so it felt like it made sense for the ol’ Stinker treatment. For those not au fait, the Stinker Review is a monthly thing where I look at a show with a bad reputation and see if it’s deserved or not.

The Main Event of this one is a Punjabi Prison match between Jinder Mahal and Randy Orton, which certainly sounds like it will be a real humdinger. The rest of the card has a slew of poorly rated matches by the looks of things, so I’m suitably nervous.

You can view the full card by clicking below;

Card with guide « WWE Battleground 2017 « Events Database « CAGEMATCH – The Internet Wrestling Database

Without further ado, let’s see how stinky WWE Battleground 2017 is!

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

We’re continuing my current rebooking arc this week, as we go from Survivor Series 2015 all the way up to WrestleMania XXXII.

Last week we booked Starrcade 2015, and I’ll post the results after the break line for those who would like to be easily caught up to where we are in this six part arc. You can also read the full article in my archives should you wish to.

Starrcade 2015 ended with a few key plot points. Roman Reigns retained his WWE Title against Cody Rhodes in the Main Event, whilst Dean Ambrose managed to gain entry into the Royal Rumble match courtesy of a big win.

Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch defeated Naomi and Sasha Banks, but now both of their teams have splintered and action is required to address it at the Royal Rumble.

Kevin Owens is still the Intercontinental Champion, but his grip on that belt might soon be slipping, as might The New Day’s hold on the WWE Tag Titles.

Let’s see what happens next as we rebook Royal Rumble 2016!

You can view the real card for the event by clicking below;

https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=137909&page=2

Happy Saturday Everyone!

I’ll keep reviewing 1998 WCW pay per views I think with Slamboree 1998 this month. I must admit that this particular era of WCW is very much my Pro Wrestling junk food. Thunder especially from this timeframe is a good thing to have on in the background when you’re doing things because it’s presented at a more relaxed pace and you usually get a couple of good wrestling matches.

The big angles for Slamboree 1998 were that the nWo was splitting into two factions, with Hollywood Hogan’s faction wearing Black and White whilst Kevin Nash’s faction wore Black and Red. Hogan’s side has beefed up the numbers by recruiting The Giant (which would have been roughly his 77th career turn by that stage I think), which has added some layers of intrigue to the Main Event as Giant will be tagging with WCW representative Sting against Kevin Nash and Scott Hall.

Elsewhere on the card we’ve got Eric Bischoff against Vince McMahon. Well, not really, but we’ll get to that. Also Bret Hart has his first pay per view match for WCW since a misguided Heel turn as he takes on Randy Savage.

You can view the full card by clicking below;

Card with guide « WCW/nWo Slamboree 1998 « Events Database « CAGEMATCH – The Internet Wrestling Database

Let’s review Slamboree 1998!

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

We’re continuing my current rebooking arc this week, as we go from Survivor Series 2015 all the way up to WrestleMania XXXII.

Last week; we crowned a new WWE Champion in the form of Roman Reigns, as he betrayed long-time friend and ally Dean Ambrose in order to join up with Triple H and The Authority, when Money in the Bank holder Sheamus handed him his trusty briefcase so that he could cash in.

I’ll post the full results for Survivor Series 2015 after the break line, and the full article is available in my archives.

Anyway, we need to continue the story here with the December pay per view. Normally WWE would hold the TLC pay per view in December, which often led to a bunch of hastily booked gimmick matches that didn’t really make sense and usually took away from existing feuds and storylines.

I’ve decided to retool the December pay per view and drop the TLC gimmick, with the replacement being the return of Starrcade. This is for a few reasons. The first is that it means we don’t have to clog the card up with dangerous gimmick matches that don’t really help with the booking. Secondly, calling the event Starrcade gives us some storytelling options we can go with which I’ll explain further down. And thirdly, I just like Starrcade as a name, and seeing as WWE bought WCW, we might as well re-use some of the better event names the, now departed, company had. I’m a sucker for all of that history and lineage stuff in wrestling too. I was considering bringing back SuperBrawl as well, but Starrcade 2015 ended up getting the nod

Happy Saturday Everyone!

We’ve got Terry Funk’s Wrestlefest this week, an event that you may have heard of before if you’ve ever watched the movie Beyond The Mat. This was supposed to be Terry Funk’s retirement show, as he’s managed to get the WWF involved meaning that Mankind and Bret Hart will be here, along with some wrestlers from Japan and ECW also.

For some reason the version I have omits one match, but I’ve found it on a certain video streaming site so I’ll include it just because I’m fascinated to see if it’ll actually be any good.

You can view the full card by clicking below;

Card with guide « Terry Funk Presents Wrestle Fest: 50 Years Of Funk « Events Database « CAGEMATCH – The Internet Wrestling Database

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

I’ve decided to try another rebooking arc, with this one being my most ambitious to date, as I’ll have six shows to book on the road to redoing WWE WrestleMania XXXII, which is often seen as one of the lamer Mania events of recent years.

Over the course of this Six Part rebooking arc, I’ll be going all the way up to and including Mania XXXII, and hopefully by the time we get there I’ll have something that is of better quality than what we got in real life. There’s every chance I’ll come up with something even worse of course, but then that’s half the fun really isn’t it?

We’re starting with Survivor Series 2015 this week, which ended up having a tournament for the WWE Title after Seth Rollins got injured. We’ll keep the tournament aspect of the show in place and see what we can do to start laying the foundations for Mania XXXII.

The real card for the event can be viewed below;

https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=132917&page=2

Happy Saturday Everyone!

I haven’t reviewed some classic All Japan in a while and I recently stumbled across this event on a certain video streaming website. As the title would suggest; Bruiser Brody Memorial Night In Budokan was a show held nearly two months after Bruiser Brody had been killed in Puerto Rico. Brody had been a huge star in Japan for both AJPW and NJPW, and his regular tag team partner Stan Hansen is in action on this show against Abdullah The Butcher.

We’ve also got Giant Baba, Mitsuharu Misawa, Genichiro Tenryu and Jumbo Tsuruta appearing on the show as well. This isn’t the full card but rather most of the second half, and I’m not sure if the other matches were taped for a later showing.

You can view the full card for the event by clicking below;

Card with guide « AJPW Summer Action Series II 1988 – Tag 6: Bruiser Brody Memorial Night In Budokan « Events Database « CAGEMATCH – The Internet Wrestling Database

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

We’ll be getting back to rebooking next week as I’ve put some time into doing another arc, which I hope you’ll enjoy. In the meantime though I saw that WWE was hocking a Best of Cody Rhodes DVD over here in the UK for the paltry price of £10, featuring matches from his debut in 2007 all the way up to his torn pec match in the Cell.

Seeing as I’ve quite enjoyed Cody’s antics since his initial debut in WWE, I thought I’d pick the DVD up and give it a reviewing. I reviewed Disc 1 last week (which you can find in the archives) so let’s finish it up with Disc 2 this week.

Link for the DVD is below if you’re interested

https://www.amazon.co.uk/WWE-American-Nightmare-Best-Rhodes/dp/B0BRT5ZPR9

Happy Stinky Saturday Everyone!

Yes, today we’re doing WCW New Blood Rising 2000. For those of you that have never read one of these, I look at a show with a bad reputation and see if that reputation is deserved or not. New Blood Rising 2000 is a famously awful show from when WCW was going off the deep end into the excrement filled swimming pool, as Vince Russo put together one of the most anger inducing messes of a wrestling show ever conceived.

We’ve got Jeff Jarrett taking on Booker T in the Main Event, but it’s the bollocks in the under card that we’ll be mostly focusing on here. Let’s see just how bad New Blood Rising 2000 really is.

You can view the card by clicking below;

https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=1721&page=3

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

We’ll be getting back to rebooking in a couple of weeks as I’ve put some time into doing another arc, which I hope you’ll enjoy. In the meantime though I saw that WWE was hocking a Best of Cody Rhodes DVD over here in the UK for the paltry price of £10, featuring matches from his debut in 2007 all the way up to his torn pec match in the Cell.

Seeing as I’ve quite enjoyed Cody’s antics since his initial debut in WWE, I thought I’d pick the DVD up and give it a reviewing. There’s two discs, so we’ll split this over two weeks.

I was thinking this would make a nice tie in to Cody winning the belt at Mania 39, but then WWE decided to WCWify that all up. Oh well.

Link for the DVD is below if you’re interested

https://www.amazon.co.uk/WWE-American-Nightmare-Best-Rhodes/dp/B0BRT5ZPR9

Happy Saturday Everyone!

Today we return to a review theme we’ve had on here before, by looking at a one match show where only one contest has stood the test of time in the general consciousness of the average wrestling fan. This time out we’ve got WWF Over The Edge 1998, a show with a highly regarded and much loved Main Event…and very little else.

The Main Event between Dude Love and Stone Cold is fantastic though, so that’s a bonus. Let’s see how the rest of the card shapes up all of these years later. I actually have Over The Edge 1998 on VHS and used to watch it a lot back in the day, so even if the overall show isn’t amazing I do have a lot of nostalgia for it.

You can view the card by clicking the link below;

https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=2018&page=3

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

Earlier in the year I posted a list of what I considered to be my favourite moments from the 30 year history of WWF/E Monday Night Raw. I quite enjoyed that so I thought I’d do a similar list for Raw’s main rival during the “Monday Night War” Era, in the form of WCW Monday Nitro. Nitro was, at one stage, a colossal ratings success, winning the famed Ratings War™ for 83 weeks in a row until the company began combusting under the weight of its own ineptitude.

Nitro was actually on the air for less than six years, but a lot of memorable moments took place during it’s time on the air, from Ric Flair stealing Randy Savage’s woman and spending his alimony, to the nWo crushing all before them, to Sting going from Surfer Dude to brooding Crow in the rafters, to Diamond Dallas Page becoming one of wrestling’s most unlikely heroes, all the way up to Bill Goldberg’s meteoric rise to the top of the wrestling world.

As always with these lists; this is just my own subjective opinion and isn’t supposed to be some kind of objective declaration of the greatest Nitro Moments. I know for most of you that will be obvious, but this is the internet, so I feel it’s probably best to clarify for those easily riled amongst us. Please feel free to share your own favourite Nitro moments in the comments section!

We did 10 to 6 last week, so we’ll finish up with 5 to 1 this week.

Happy Extreme Saturday Everyone!

We’ve got another ECW show this week, as I’ve only ever seen the Main Event for House Party 1998 previously, but I was intrigued to see the rest of the show as some of the matches on the card sound like they might be fun.

Our Main Event is Sandman and Sabu trying to do better than their horrid match at November to Remember 1997 when they battle in a Stairway to Hell match. On the under card we’ve got Gran Hamada, Gran Naniwa and The Great Sasuke coming over from Japan, so the show should have an international flavour to it.

You can view the card by clicking below;

https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=387&page=3

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

Earlier in the year I posted a list of what I considered to be my favourite moments from the 30 year history of WWF/E Monday Night Raw. I quite enjoyed that so I thought I’d do a similar list for Raw’s main rival during the “Monday Night War” Era, in the form of WCW Monday Nitro. Nitro was, at one stage, a colossal ratings success, winning the famed Ratings War™ for 83 weeks in a row until the company began combusting under the weight of its own ineptitude.

Nitro was actually on the air for less than six years, but a lot of memorable moments took place during it’s time on the air, from Ric Flair stealing Randy Savage’s woman and spending his alimony, to the nWo crushing all before them, to Sting going from Surfer Dude to brooding Crow in the rafters, to Diamond Dallas Page becoming one of wrestling’s most unlikely heroes, all the way up to Bill Goldberg’s meteoric rise to the top of the wrestling world.

As always with these lists; this is just my own subjective opinion and isn’t supposed to be some kind of objective declaration of the greatest Nitro Moments. I know for most of you that will be obvious, but this is the internet, so I feel it’s probably best to clarify for those easily riled amongst us. Please feel free to share your own favourite Nitro moments in the comments section!

We’ll do 10 to 6 this week and finish up with 5 to 1 next week.

Happy Saturday Everyone!

We reviewed a WrestleMania Stinker a couple of weeks ago so we’ll review the show that followed it this week in the form of WrestleMania XII. WrestleMania XII didn’t have a particularly high bar to clear when it came to being better than WrestleMania XI, partly thanks to the WWF having an injection of fresh talent in the following year such as Triple H, Dustin Runnels, Steve Austin and Vader, all of whom featured on the WrestleMania XII card.

The WWF also had a big Main Event match that should have appealed to their fan base with top babyfaces Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels going at it in an Iron Man match. The show didn’t end up being a complete success but there is some decent stuff here, so let’s take another look at WrestleMania XII.

You can view the card by clicking below;

https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=1980&page=3

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

This week’s subject is hardly treading new ground, as many people have made YouTube videos, written articles and even created e-feds online to tackle the idea of what WCW One Night Stand would look like. However, I thought it would be fun to come up with a card for such an event, so I’m giving it a go.

For the sake of the article, let’s assume that WWE, buoyed by the success of the ECW equivalent, decided to hold a WCW One Night Stand event in the summer/autumn of 2005. Unfortunately, holding the event in this timeframe means that I won’t be able to use some guys like Kevin Nash and Raven, as they were contacted to TNA at the time and wouldn’t have been released to do it. Plus, I think Nash had suffered a really gnarly staph infection and wouldn’t have been available anyway.

Aside from that though, WWE had quite a few of the old WCW guard under contract and others were either working for companies that wouldn’t restrict them appearing or were freelance at the time, meaning that I think this card would have actually been able to legally take place had it been booked in July-September of 2005.

So, without further ado, let’s have a bash at WCW One Night Stand

Happy Stampeding Saturday Everyone!

We continue our journey into 1998 WCW today by taking a looking at Spring Stampede 1998. This is a show I’ve actually watched quite a bit because I had it on bootleg VHS back in the day when it was very difficult to get official WCW releases over here in the UK. From memory it’s not a great show but it’s got enough decent stuff on it as to make it worthwhile.

I actually managed to find the VHS version of the show, so I’m watching that for this. The bonus is that I get the original music without the Peacock/Network dubbing, but the negative is that the video quality is pretty rubbish

You can view the card by clicking below;

https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=1644&page=3

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

This week we’re going back to the theme of booking an event that never actually happened in the form of Bound For Glory 2003. NWA-TNA at the time were trying to build to a big Autumn showdown between Jeff Jarrett and Hulk Hogan in what would be the company’s first ever 3 hour pay per view event. I believe the 30^th of November was the planned date in question.

Sadly for NWA-TNA, Hogan ended up having surgery on his knee and the whole thing fell apart, with Bound for Glory not becoming a regular stop on the pay per view calendar until 2005. In this scenario however, The Hulkster doesn’t need to take time off and Bound For Glory 2003 can still go ahead, with Jarrett and Hogan closing out the event.

However, let’s see what I can come up with in order to put on a good show for 3 hours. NWA-TNA had some good wrestlers on the roster at the time and some strong storytellers in the form of Raven, so there’s a decent level of talent to work with.

Let’s book NWA-TNA Bound For Glory 2003!

Happy Stinky Saturday Everyone!

We’re back with another Stinker Review, where I look at a show with a bad reputation and see if it’s deserved. This week our target is WWF WrestleMania XI, a show that is wildly regarded as one of the worst Mania events ever. It was a show that was built around Bam Bam Bigelow facing off with famous American Footballer Lawrence Taylor, which is at least a big celebrity match with freak show appeal, but the under card isn’t really close to being Mania-Worthy.

However, maybe WrestleMania XI has been unfairly maligned and it’s better than people give it credit for? Let’s give it a chance to defend itself before we decide whether it deserves to be labelled as a Stinker.

You can view the card by clicking the link below;

https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=1925&page=3